Vanderbilt University Teaching Pronoun Etiquette

You have to go into the Wayback Machine to find a time when schools focused on academics. Who can afford reading comprehension when there’s gender non-specific pronouns to be learned? Vanderbilt University is a private institution so they have every God-given right to be tremendously infantile and asinine when it comes to pretend diversity. Someday diversity may mean diversity of thought. Right after the Browns go back to back with Super Bowl rings. Hang in there.

Vanderbilt’s Faculty Gender Inclusivity Task Force really is a game changer. Imagine the fucking tenor of those self-important committee meetings. If you thought gender inclusivity meant, let’s make sure women are included in shit, you’re a gender binary thinker and you must wear culottes and a bandana and spend a week in gender identification training. Is this a boy or a girl? Wrong. The answer is: make my unhappy feelings go away.

The Inclusivity Task Force is insisting that faculty build into their greetings their name and their preferred gender pronouns. I’m Sam. He-him-his. And subsequently, politely ask the person their meeting their name and their preferred gender pronouns. Recognizing that random people are likely to start punching teachers in the face, the Task Force recommends only engaging in this pronoun practice with persons with whom they’re already familiar.

I know what you’re thinking. Why the fuck would you need to ask somebody you already know how they like to be gender pronoun identified? Gender binary thought alert. Not asking shows you believe that gender identification is static. Sure Chris was a he-him-his last week. But this week Chris may be a her-she-hers. Politely find yourself a lower maintenance racquetball partner.

It’s never a good idea to build a school of thought based entirely on emotional aspiration. That can only lead to architects designing homes made out of gluten-free cake. The underlying issue at Vanderbilt and similar institutions is rampant, unchecked assery. It’s hard to believe that’s not a real word. Or a gender insensitive pronoun. People fixated on fixing minutiae are surrendered to the fact they can’t fix anything meaningful. The entire house desperately needs to be re-wired. I’ve just replaced my reading lamp bulbs with environmentally friendly halogens. Problem solved? It’s best to ignore these people and, when nobody is looking, tear down their signs and feel okay about your vandalism.

For the record, colleges and universities have always been gaping chasms of idiocy. Different song, same tune.